Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

In a small cottage outside a little town called Hypaepae in the kingdom of Lydiafn1 there dwelt a merchant and craftsman called IDMON. He worked in the nearby Ionian city of Colophon as a trader in dyes, specializing in the highly prized colour Phocaean purple. His wife had died giving birth to a girl, ARACHNE. Idmon was as proud of Arachne as ever father was of daughter. For since her early childhood she had shown the most extraordinary skill as a weaver.

Spinning and weaving were naturally of great importance in those days. Next to the growing of food few things were as crucial to human welfare as the reliable manufacture of textiles for clothing and furnishing. And ‘manufacture’ is quite the right word. It literally means ‘making by hand’ – and all such work was done by hand then. Fleece or flax was spun into threads and loaded onto looms to be woven into woollen or linen cloth. It was so much the province of skilled women that the very gender itself was given names in some cultures and languages that reflected the practice. In English we still talk of the ‘distaff side’ of a family, meaning the female line. The distaff was the spindle around which the wool or flax was wound preparatory to spinning. And those who spun were called ‘spinsters’, a name which once applied without negative connotation to any unmarried woman.

But as with almost all human practices, there are those who have the mysterious ability to raise the everyday and ordinary to the level of art.

From the very first Arachne’s skill at the loom was the talk and pride of all Ionia. The speed and accuracy of her work were astonishing; the assurance and dexterity with which she selected one coloured thread after another, almost without looking, stunned the admirers who often crowded into Idmon’s cottage to watch her at work. But it was the pictures, patterns and intricate designs that emerged from under the blur of her shuttle that caused onlookers to burst into spontaneous applause and declare her without equal. The forests, palaces, seascapes and mountain views she created were so real that you felt you could jump into them. It wasn’t only the mortal citizens of Colophon and Hypaepae that came to see her at her loom: local naiads from the River Pactolus and oreads from nearby Mount Tmolus crowded into the cottage and shook their heads in wonder too.

All were agreed that Arachne was the kind of phenomenon that might come only once in five centuries of history. To be so technically skilled was cause for admiration enough, but to be endowed with such taste – she never overdid the use of purples or other costly and showy dyes, for example – that was the miracle.

Such praise as she daily received would have gone to anyone’s head. Arachne was not a spoiled or conceited child – in fact when not at the loom she came across as practical and prosaic rather than flighty or temperamental. She understood that she had been given a gift and was not one to claim personal credit for it. But she did value her talent and believed that in rating it at its proper worth she was simply being honest.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, gazing down at her work one fateful afternoon, ‘I truly think if Pallas Athena herself were to sit down and spin with me she would find herself unable to match my skill. After all, I do this every day and she only weaves once in a while, for amusement. It’s no wonder I am so far her superior.’

With so many nymphs present in the front room of Idmon’s cottage you can be sure that news soon got back to Athena of Arachne’s ill-chosen words.

The Weave-Off

A week or so later, the usual crowd gathered round her, Arachne sat at the loom completing a tapestry that represented the founding of Thebes. Gasps and moans of appreciation greeted her depiction of the dragon-tooth warriors rising from the earth, but the oohs and aahs of her admirers were interrupted by a loud knocking on the cottage door.

It was opened to reveal a bent and wrinkled old woman. ‘I do hope I’ve come to the right place,’ she wheezed, dragging in a great sack. ‘I’m told a wonderful weaver lives here. Ariadne, is it?’

She was invited inside. ‘Her name is Arachne,’ they told her, pointing to the girl herself seated at her loom.

‘Arachne. I see. May I look? My dear, these are your own? How superb.’

Arachne nodded complacently.

The old woman plucked at the weave. ‘Hard to believe that a mortal could do such work. Surely Athena herself had a hand in this?’

‘I hardly think,’ Arachne said with a touch of impatience, ‘that Athena could do anything half so fine. Now, please don’t unpick it.’

‘Oh, you think Athena inferior to you?’

‘In the matter of weaving it’s hardly a matter of opinion.’

‘What would you say to her if she was here now, I wonder?’

‘I would urge her to confess that I am the better weaver.’

‘Then urge away, foolish mortal!’